Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Gorgias' and 'fragments/reports'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / h. Against ethics
Only the Cyrenaics reject the idea of a final moral end [Aristippus elder, by Annas]
     Full Idea: The Cyrenaics are the most radical ancient moral philosophers, since they are the only school explicitly to reject the importance of achieving an overall final end.
     From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 11.1
     A reaction: This looks like dropping out, but it could also be Keats's 'negative capability', of simply participating in existence without needing to do anything about it.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / g. Will to power
Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato]
     Full Idea: Callicles: It's the weaklings who constitute the majority of the human race who make the rules.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483b)
     A reaction: An aristocrat bemoans democracy. Presumably the qualification for being a 'weakling' is shortage of money. How strong are the scions of the aristocrats?